Thank you for joining Team Julia's Wings for the 5 Mile Kent Pumpkin Run!! The Julia’s Wings Foundation (‘JWF’) is very excited to kick-off our fundraising efforts with this run/walk on Sunday, October 27th. Julia's Wings Foundation ("JWF") was founded by the Malsin Family after they lost their daughter Julia and big sister to Alyssa, to Aplastic Anemia in Jan 2012. Julia was only 13 years old when she passed away.

Julia was a truly remarkable girl. Her maturity, strength, positive attitude and determination is something that has made a tremendous impact in many people’s lives. Julia was hospitalized for over a year, spending as much as 6-8 weeks at a time in both Hartford and Boston, where specialized care for this rare bone marrow failure disease is provided. While battling her illness, what upset her more than the pain and physical limitations she was experiencing, was seeing other young children, fighting for their lives, without a parent or family member by their side at all times. The thought of this seems unfathomable to many people, but it is the unfortunate reality of many families. These families must make the gut-wrenching decision to work in order to afford the medical care and other travel and living expenses.

This event and your participation are so important to us for many reasons, and we cannot thank you enough for your support. Currently, they are few organizations that raise awareness and funding for research of Aplastic Anemia. Unfortunately, as the Malsin Family found out, there are no organizations that offer financial assistance to these families. JWF was founded to provide such assistance to families of children with life threatening hematological diseases and to medical professionals for healthcare research.

100% of the money you raise will go directly to assisting families, whose children are right now in the hospital fighting for their lives. Nothing can take away the pain they are feeling watching their child suffer at the mercy of this disease, but hopefully being able to take away some of the financial worry, can enable them to fully focus on the needs of their child and most importantly to actually be by their side, holding their hand and providing the comfort only a parent can give.

Our Foundation’s hope is that with continued research and funding, one child’s life may be saved and one mother, father, sister, and family will not have to endure the pain and suffering that Aplastic Anemia brought into the Malsin’s lives.

Our Foundation’s motto is a quote from Gandhi “be the change you wish to see in the world.” So again, we thank you for all you are doing to help us be as successful as possible and to be able to change the lives of these families.